I have mentioned in various forums that this song was a big influence on me on my “Unnatural” album. That was mainly because the drums are amazingly well done–and for a long time I couldn’t even figure out how they were being played. Anyhow, there is a moment of metaphorical, poetical genius in this song that makes me wish I could one time reach such a profound level of connectivity with my words, without leaving the metaphor as when Sting says:

“Woke up this morning // Can’t believe what I saw // Hundred billion bottles // Washed up on the shore”

This line is perfect, simply put. It just amazes me how that particular line tells me so many things without telling me any of them.

(This was written a long time ago, but I thought I would port it to this blog)

For anyone new to my site, welcome and hopefully everything is self explanatory. Drop me a line and let me know what you think. For everyone else, I think the Unnatural albums are just about ready (at least a few should be on sale by Tuesday [I hope … agh]).

Anyway, I am playing for a songwriter’s show in Morgantown this weekend. It is Friday evening in the Vandalia lounge of the Mountainlair, and I play at 11:30. I am going to play The Bird, The Fish, and The Man, in that order, so if you are going to be around, come watch me play. I could use the moral support.

Also, as I promised, as soon as I get things squared away with Unnatural, I am going to start selling singles of Lucky Town, so hopefully those will be available by December.

Well here I am again, bearing inconclusive news to my adoring masses. Unnatural is almost ready to go. All of the CDs are printed, the booklet is completely designed, the artwork is done, the music is rockin. However, I am having difficulty with printing the booklets. As it turns out, it takes a lot of precision to print, cut, and fold the booklets correctly (or acceptably) so I am waiting on the price of professional printing.

One quote I got was $600 for 100 booklets, which is way out of my price range. The second one I am still waiting for, but assuming it is as bad, I will just have to do what I can do with what I’ve got, meaning the paper will probably be somewhat subpar for the first booklets. This is not really my concern, however. I want the books to be folded very well and cut at least pretty close to perfectly, and this presents a challenge, as I have stated.

Anyway, I have a new lofi up of “Pieces” because I decided I needed to start doing some recordings of my new stuff, if for no other reason than to get a record of what the songs are supposed to sound like. I am being pulled in many different ways on my projects. Coupling that with the amount of other projects I have involved myself in lately, I just can’t seem to make any progress to myself. As for Self-Titled, I really don’t like the songs, and that pretty much drives me to ignore my other albums.

Long story short, not much has changed, but I am working on something. Oh, and pretty soon “The Abortion Prophecies” will return to this page. Lucky you …

Ok, as most of you know, I have been jumping back and forth as to what I am going to do with CDs. Well, for the moment, I have just settled on selling “Unnatural” since it is the closest thing I have to a professional sounding album. Besides, I am learning it is a lot of work to put all the fine touches on a CD.

I am waiting for a shipment of supplies that should come today, as well as a final draft of an art mural I commissioned for the center of the booklet, and I will be able to print my first run of 85 copies within two weeks. As soon as I get the pages printed, CDs will go on sale with an order form on the “Purchase CDs” page.

I think everyone is going to be pleased with the final quality of this album. I know I am more than impressed with myself heheh …

The artwork for the “Unnatural” inner CD booklet has been commissioned and should be done in two weeks. The first test pages for the booklet have been printed. The paper for the booklets has arrived. The blank CDs, jewel cases, and ink will arrive September 19. Poison Springs Records will very soon start marketing its first artist.

Click on the Purchase CDs link in the left hand column to keep updated on ordering information. The day will be here very soon …

Ok let me give you some “specifics” on the progress of “Jeremy Tharp,” and not in the ethereal sense. I feel a lot of pressure on the heels of “Unnatural” to make a very complete, exhaustive, musically coherent and lyrically coherent album, basically being autobiographical. That is, I want to give an accurate representation of how I feel, and I want the songs to maintain a musical style. Of course, the beauty of metaphor is there are hundreds of avenues available to accomplish this one task. As far as the musical cohesion, that will take place in the recording stage, and “Unnatural” worked out well because I recorded it all in a three day span. Nothing about it makes me want to make changes other than production flaws. But the songs I have written so far seem very sporatic, specifically musically, and I don’t feel like the complement each other just yet. Like I’ve said before I may break it into two albums, although I’m not sure where I would make the division.

I also feel a lot of pressure to write songs similar to the ones I have in the past, although the majority of the songs from my first two albums I can no longer relate to, because they applied to very specific moments in my life that are no longer relevant. One of my goals as a songwriter is to incorporate the appropriate amount of metaphor so that I can disconnect myself from the emotion, with just the right tough of specifics so that other people might get something out of it. As it stands right now, “Jeremy Tharp” is ridiculously abstract and very unfocused. Like I said, I am a little anxious about it. I need it to accurately reflect my own reactions or it will feel like a failure.

Part of the process that made “Unnatural” a success to me was that I was writing non-“Unnatural” songs at the same time, and I had a well defined theme. Right now I don’t have that, because my other projects are at a relative standstill, and who can really apply a theme to himself? I just need the right inspiration with the right motivation all at the right time, so for now I am just going to write a lot of songs and hopefully be able to bring myself to axing the ones that don’t fit. Period. “Jeremy Tharp” is not even beginning to resemble perfect …

I apologize for my lack of updates, but honestly, there has been little to report. I have been pretty busy, and just haven’t taken the time to leave anyone a note (yeah I know a lot of people are reading this.) Anyway, I have had a minimal financial setback so Unnatural probably won’t go on sale until mid-September. I’m not sure when the rest of my albums will do the same. I did remaster Unnatural because for some reason it was very lacking in trebles. I am not sure if what I did was enough to compensate, but it’s the best I’ve got at the moment.

In other news, my self-titled album is moving along, and may break into a two-cd set based on the way the songs are shaping up. I really haven’t done much on my other projects at this time.

I just want to thank everyone for their input on “Unnatural” and I am glad most of you are enjoying it. I just wanted to explain a few new features of my site. As you can see, there are more options on the left now. You will also notice that if one of these pages listed has changed in the last week, when you hover the mouse over it, the time since it was updated will display in the page title. Also, you will see at the top of this screen a note that says when I last updated anything at all. I did this to help you notice right away whether or not something is different. Let me know if these features enhance your visit(s). 🙂